Whether it’s Grandpa Gary or the elderly cashier at the grocery store, most people know “that person” who claims they can tell when precarious weather is about to approach because they can feel it in their joints.
A recent six-nation study tried to shed light to this phenomenon by analyzing weather patterns and joint pain in elderly individuals. The study asked 712 individuals whether they considered themselves “weather sensitive,” and which types of conditions caused the most discomfort.
According to the report, 469 individuals considered themselves to be weather sensitive. An analysis of the data revealed:
- 40 percent said damp and rainy conditions worsened their symptoms.
- 30 percent said only the cold weather affected their symptoms.
- Only 5 percent said hot conditions increased their discomfort.
- Women, the less educated, and the more anxious and depressed where most likely to consider themselves weather sensitive.
- Individuals living in warm climates were more likely to be weather sensitive than those living in climates where the average temperature is colder.
The research group was unable to pinpoint a reason why elderly individuals claimed to feel more discomfort during different weather conditions, but the group offered three possible explanations; Changes in temperature and humidity may affect the expansion and contraction of certain tissues, people in warmer climates may be outside more, meaning that they are more likely to notice temperature drops and seek to attribute pain to the atmospheric changes, and psychological uncertainty of the weather can cause anxiety, which may cause individuals to look for reasons to explain noticeable joint pain.
Despite the possible reasons, researchers concluded, “the common belief that joint pain in osteoarthritis becomes worse by living in a cold and damp climate is not supported by our results.”
Dr. Silverman comments
Unfortunately these authors miss what seems so common in my practice. Whether it’s cold or warm doesn’t seem to make a difference in complaints of pain, it’s the change from one to the other and the speed with which that change occurs.
A rapidly advancing cold or warm front in Minnesota brings in dozens of patients with increasing generalized symptoms, setbacks, and individuals worried something has gone wrong.
Patient complaints and history combined with a careful and thorough physical exam usually tell an elegant and specific story. I like to be able to tell a patient what I term, ‘the story why they hurt.’ It helps me to tell patients in layman’s terms what their problem is, what caused it, and what all needs to be fixed to alleviate it. Many patients have similar stories (making pattern recognition an important skill in the practice of foot and ankle care). Being open to different patterns that cause the same clinical symptoms is a skill I constantly work to perfect.
Yet there are days when many patients come into the office complaining of pain when no new conditions or injuries have occurred. They say things like “flare up” and “noticeable discomfort,” and they all seem to come into the office the same day or within a week of each other. Not surprisingly, they come when the weather all of a sudden changes and we go from 5 to 50 degrees during the day.
I don’t know why. They don’t attribute it to the weather, but if no other mechanical symptoms or instigating factors are identifiable and the symptom aggravation passes quickly, a weather explanation suffices.
Perhaps the researchers aren’t asking the right questions. It may not be the temperature or the humidity, rather how fast we go from one to the other.
Related source: MedPage Today
